These are the FACTS about America’s problem with opioids…
- Approximately 40,000 Americans are now dying annually from opioid overdoses. That’s approximately 115 people every single day.
- More than two million Americans are now addicted to opioids.
- Americans make up 5% of the world’s population – but consume 80% of the world’s opioid prescription drugs.
- More than 1/3 of those prescribed opioids for a medical condition go on to use those drugs for non-medical reasons.
- Prescription opioids are responsible for 45% of all opioid-related deaths.
- Once addicted to prescription opioids – the next drug of choice is often heroin. It’s cheaper and readily available.
- More and more street drugs, including heroin and cocaine, are being mixed and sold with fentanyl – a drug 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine.
- Fentanyl is a man-made opioid that was created by the pharmaceutical industry for pain management in medical care.
- Fentanyl is not only powerful – it’s also deadly, with extremely small quantities able to kill its victim in a matter of minutes.
Scary and sad – right?
Enter AcelRx Pharmaceuticals and the FDA. AcelRx Pharmaceuticals has created a new opioid called Dsuvia. And that new opioid has just been approved by the FDA.
One might ask – given all of the abuse of prescription opioids – why would the FDA allow another into the U.S. market?
Well – how about if we told you Dsuvia is ten times more potent than fentanyl and 1,000 times more potent than morphine?
Does the drug have benefits that outweigh the risks of approval and distribution?
According to Raeford Brown, chair of the FDA’s Anesthetic and Analgesic Drug Products Advisory Committee – no. None.
He also said, I “predict that we will encounter diversion, abuse, and death within the early months of its availability on the market.”
Public Citizen’s Health Research Group went further to describe Dsuvia as an “opioid with no unique benefit but unique harms.”
So why on earth would the FDA allow the introduction in the U.S. of yet another opioid – one more dangerous than all the others?
Some suggest cynically that the FDA is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the drug companies.
If the drug companies do in fact, have undue influence over regulatory matters at FDA – that my friends is a serious problem.
One thing is clear – the new Congress must seek answers on this matter immediately upon taking office.
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